Yep, happy to do so.
An AOC is a licence from the CAA to operate aircraft for the purposes of public transport undertaking. It should not be confused with an Operating Licence.
An AOC is issued by the CAA's Safety regulation Group. It certifies that you have the necessary resources and experience to operate aircraft for public transport.
An operating licence is issued by the CAA's Consumer Protection Group (CPG, formerly known as the ERG - Economic Regulation Group).
You can see the difference. One is to do with Safety, the other is to do with Finance.
It is possible to get an AOC prior to getting an Operating Licence, ( although , in the case of NOW, one would be meaningless without the other).
When approaching investors, it is normal for them to set a series of pre-conditions that must be met before they release their investing capital. These conditions are called conditions precedent. As an AOC is an essential part of being an airline, it might well be set as a condition prececent to the investment, namely that that the AOC must be issued before the investor's capital is released to secure the operating licence.
I might suggest that the founders of NOW might have raised , privately, just about sufficient capital to cover the cost of getting their AOC, which, if successful, will mean the remaining capital investment required is forthcoming ( we could be talking about the same day, by the way). If this is the case, it would explain why NOW are not in a position to announce routes, sell tickets, put up check-in desks, update websites, and all the other things that would normally be going on at this time.
When it comes to getting an Operating Licence, by the way, 757 rated , you need to show the CAA CPG that you have sufficient capital to operate for three months ( and they decide which are the three representative months) without income. So, they might well decide that the three representative months, in the case of NOW are the three months from when they have 3 aircraft on the books, rather than just one, or two. Of course, trying to apply the logic of saying that you wouldn't take delivery of number 3 if you had been stuck with 2 for three months with no revenue, doesn't wash in the hallow finance halls of the CPG.
I believe there is more details of the requirements for an AOC and an Operating Licence available on the CAA website, if any of you are particularly interested.